PHOTOS: Tine specific post hammerstone flaking, in reverse

[AncientTech]

Warning:  This post contains "photos".

[le0n]

^^ nice point.

thanks for posting each tool with each phase.

[Tower]

Tech, may I ask what you are striking your puntch  with? I've kinda been experimenting with them myself.   With that said I'm finding I have no handicap using direct percussion  Tower

[AncientTech]

^^ nice point.

thanks for posting each tool with each phase.

In some instances, I am actually alternating tool processes. 

[AncientTech]

Tech, may I ask what you are striking your puntch  with? I've kinda been experimenting with them myself.   With that said I'm finding I have no handicap using direct percussion  Tower

In this case, stone and antler, depending on certain factors.  At times, the different effects of different strikers can be seen in the flake scars.  In other cases, with other tools, I use primarily a wooden striker.  Here is an example of a flake made with a wooden striker:







Even though a wooden striker was used in the previous photos, this does not mean that the energy from the blow went directly through antler, though the process is indirect percussion. 

By the way, percussion works great on brittle materials, such as obsidian, and heat treated chert.  Native obsidian workers still use hammerstone direct percussion, today.  But, in working high grade materials, that people routinely heat treat for up to twelve hours (such as raw Colha chert), breakage requires extremely hard blows that generate a profound degree of force.  Yet, these blows cannot produce an over-abundance of hard shock.  Otherwise, the hard shock will internally damage the finely grained stone.  With the proper technologies, one can channel excessive amounts of force, while minimizing the amounts of shock involved.  Force and shock are not the same thing.

   

[bowmo]

To me the appeal and advantages with indirect (tho I use them differently than A T) shine through when it comes to knapping most of the day for days on end, as it is much easier on the joints in my hand. Also, I recently gave myself a lovely mild little hernia that I'm not currently choosing to deal with and pressure flaking can be really hard on it some days but punch work is no problem. That being said I generally don't find the need you use it till the piece is already heavily reduced and I don't have any issues with direct percussion no matter how hard the stone.

[AncientTech]

To me the appeal and advantages with indirect (tho I use them differently than A T) shine through when it comes to knapping most of the day for days on end, as it is much easier on the joints in my hand. Also, I recently gave myself a lovely mild little hernia that I'm not currently choosing to deal with and pressure flaking can be really hard on it some days but punch work is no problem. That being said I generally don't find the need you use it till the piece is already heavily reduced and I don't have any issues with direct percussion no matter how hard the stone.

You are the third person I have heard use the word "shine", with regard to indirect percussion.  The first person was Philip Churchill.  He said that the small cylinder punches (copper) really shined, in making his Danish dagger handles.  I believe it took Philip about 90 hours of practice to become proficient with them.  I have a DVD he sent me of his work, with the small cylinder punches, held between the fingers.  Unfortunately, my good friend Philip passed away about a year and a half ago.  The worst part is that he was so eager to understand what all of the evidence meant.  But, I did not figure it out until about six months after he died.  And, he was so busy filling Danish dagger orders that he did not have much time to carry out his own experiments.  So, he weighed in on mine.  Unfortunately, there were still too many leaps to make.  And, he died before I was able to finally bridge the evidence, with practice, which happened in January of 2015. 

I think it is safe to say that I generally follow a path that was already laid out, that involves percussion, pressure, and a third flintknapping process.  And, in combining these processes, I can generate an additional force under certain circumstances that cannot be directly created.  And, that is how the controlled outrepasse flaking is created - or at least how I first started creating it, in January of 2015, when I realized how the additional force could be created, which seemed to be contained within the information that I found.